


Cut Losses

by Control_Room, Random_ag



Series: Phantasmagaia [2]
Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Blood, Fae & Fairies, First Kiss, Gen, Living Together, Sequel, Sheep, Slow Burn, Sweet, YOU THOUGHT WE WERE DONE WELL GUESS AGAIN, blood mention, broken bones mentioned, fluster, taking care of bones
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:34:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 17,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27916090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Control_Room/pseuds/Control_Room, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Random_ag/pseuds/Random_ag
Summary: Henry starts learning from his mistakes, and learning new things, about himself, his world, and one of his closest friends.
Relationships: Henry Stein/Linda Eleanor Stein
Series: Phantasmagaia [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2044147
Comments: 33
Kudos: 6





	1. Sheep at the Door

Henry rubbed his eyes as Eleanor shook him awake. His glasses were still on his face, medical books had slid off his lap and onto the floor. He had fallen asleep as he studied. Again. But that was normal, and that was okay, funds lasting them as long as they needed, especially as he picked up odd jobs at the clinic. It had been exactly a week since his breakdown, and he had thrust himself headfirst into classes, straining his mind to ignore his still painfully aching heart. Eleanor had stayed by his side at all times, though she never woke him, especially not after a study night, unless there was something important.

“Is the house on fire?” Henry asked in a sleepy daze, blinking away his tiredness.

The demoness stared straight into his soul, unimpressed but too loving of Henry to call him out on being an absolute idiot.

“Sheep.”

“What?”

“There are so many sheep on our doorstep,” Eleanor informed him, holding his face in her hands, looking him in the eyes so he could tell she was not joking. “No name. They won’t leave. There’s also some money, and other things, like cheeses and fabrics. Did you service an unusally wealthy shepard at the clinic?”

“Uh, no, I don’t think so, Shawn had come in and he has a couple sheep,” Henry replied. “He likes poking fun at Willy by saying they look like his hair.”

“Henry.” Eleanor repeated, “There are. A fuckton of sheep. At our doorstep.”

“It can’t be that many-- why hello there little fella!” Henry exclaimed, reaching to pat a wandering sheep on its head as it trotted merrily into their living room. “How did you get inside?”

It said a little ‘bah’, without really seeming to care about his words, and then laid down in front of him. 

“How many sheep?” Henry asked, staring at the stationary animal. “They seem quite domestic.”

“I’d say… about… fifty? Or seventy? Somewhere between those -- let's say sixty.”

Henry choked.

“Should I get you some water?”

“No, no, I’m just thinking of the blast Linda is going to have,” he answered. “She's gonna go on a patting spree as soon as she wakes up. Might try to ride on one or two of them, too.”

“Mama! There’s a sheep in my room! Is it a new pet?”

Eleanor and Henry looked at one another. 

“Let’s build them a shack,” Henry told her. “So they’ll stop coming in here. There’s a lot of pasture on this hill, they’d do just fine.”

Linda came out with a little lamb keeping up with its langley little legs beside her, delight evident on her face. It lit up even more as she saw the sheep in front of Henry. 

“This one is a baby!” she laughed, hugging the one that walked with her, which gave out a happy little yell. “Mama, I love her! I’m gonna name her Matilda.”

“Matilda the sheep,” Eleanor echoed. “Henry, you gather all of them outside. I’m going to go have a small cup of good old fashioned whiskey. Did I mention that came with sheep, too? There are about thirty kegs outside. Take them to the cellar, maybe?”

“I’m calling Willy, Wally, and Mirror,” Henry said, half in a daze. “I’m gonna need help with all this… are you sure there was no name at all? Nothing? Not even some kind of clue on who sent them?”

“Not that I can think of,” she answered. Henry dialed the triplet’s number. “Tell them that they can take some of them, if they want.”

“Willy doesn’t like sheep,” Henry smiled, and was glad to hear Wally pick up just then. “Hey. Uh, I need a bit of help. Do you three have time today? Afternoon? Okay, sounds good. I’ll see you then. Bye, Wally.” 

“MAMA IT’S SHEEP HEAVEN! I’M GONNA CALL THIS ONE FRED, YOUR NAME IS ZIPPY, AND THAT ONE CAN BE GERALD, YOU CAN BE OPRAH, AND MAYBE YOU CAN BE DIANA, I HAVE TO THINK OF MORE NAMES!”

“At least she's having fun.”

Eleanor nodded, and then showed him the bottle of whiskey: “It’s from somewhere called ‘Italy’.” She laughed as Henry was about to point out that Italy was a country in Europe, confused. “I know what Italy is, dummy. I'm just pulling your leg.”

A metaphorical lightbulb lit up in Henry's brain: “Solipsista!” he exclaimed, a hand slapping his forehead, “It must be their doing -- I don't know why they would do this, but they're the only Italian we might know, so this must be some weird gift from them.”

“Oh? Are Streghi known for bringing livestock and goods for no reason whatsoever?” Eleanor asked, amused.

“I do not know, but they might as well. They might at least have seen who did it. Wouldn’t hurt to ask, would it?”

“I suppose not.”

“I'll call Shawn and tell him to send them over with the triplets -- hey, no! No! Get your teeth off of that--”

The mischievous sheep (Henry would learn that this one was the only one of the bunch that misbehaved) pulled at the curtain it had begun nibbling in an attempt to flee with the impromptu snack in tow, but the hunter’s approach frightened it into losing its bite on the fabric, much to its hungered dismay. Eleanor laughed and went to the phone to call Shawn while Henry picked the sheep up with ease and brought it outside, to where he was treated to a mass chorus of dissonant sheep calls. 

He had to start working on containing them somehow.

“Okay, all of you, come along,” he said, and to his absolute astonishment, they all gathered before him, looking at him with eyes far more intelligent than he had seen within a sheep. The one Linda had named Fred seemed a little chaffed, and bleated at him in an almost rude tone. Those around Fred seemed to laugh. Henry blinked. “Uh, I’m going to build a shack for all of you, so I’ll need five of you to come help carry wood.”

The sheep looked at each other, as if deliberating, and soon five of the bigger looking sheep stepped forward. 

Henry rubbed his eyes.

“This has to be a dream,” he muttered as he set off to the edge of the wood, the five quadrupeds following docile behind him. He loaded onto two pairs the larger beams, and gave the biggest sheep the smaller, thicker ones. They began trooping back to a lower area where the building could be set up, and Henry got to work, some of the smaller, more dexterous sheep bringing him his tool chest from his own shed, carrying it in their teeth. Others dragged more wood along. One of them, which Henry would call Cornflake, brought him a frog. While not particularly helpful, it did make him smile, and he petted the happily loopy sheep with the right (if slightly confused) spirit. The frog stayed for a little, as though bewildered at having been caught by a gosh darn sheep, before hopping away at a leisurely pace. Once the shack was completed, the sheep all filed in, bleating in conversation, picking areas to claim for themselves. Henry shook his head. “This is batshit insane.”

“What is?” a familiar voice asked over his shoulder. Willy whistled as Wally waved at the hunter and Mirror floated curiously towards the shack's entrance. “That’s a whole lot of sheepers. They look like they’re practically herding themselves, though.”

“Do you want any?” Henry asked futilely. The three shook their heads. “You at least know who could have possibly sent me these?”

“Maybe that thing?” Mirror's voice crackled like a broken radio. Before any could follow his gaze a strong thud and a rustling of disturbed leaves signaled the fall of what appeared to be an extraordinarily large, pitch black, vaguely human shaped fruit.

A wobbly arm emerged from the dark mantle and Solipsista's eyes came into view as they raised their hatted head; their pupils tightened and enlarged to replicate the manic blinking of a creature with eyelids.

“Sor mi’,” the Strego began, pulling themselves up with what appeared to be great difficulty, “Sor mi’, ghe le capis’ tut, pero porc’ mar'm’ i’ ‘l dí mi dormo, ghe ‘a notte de'o la'ora’, ghe ‘nda'o a dormí 'dess, e Shawn m’ ha di'o eh, no, sor Stein ta chama, de'i ‘nda’, e i’ ‘nda’ ho ‘nda’, pero capis, ghe pa’ mi è mi'a ros’ e f'ore, ‘rivar qua ‘osí velos velos, deprisa, e ‘avvero non ghe sto plù en pies…”

“Solipsista,” Henry stopped them, gently getting a hold of their shoulders to sustain and calm them, “Solipsista, I don't understand a word you're saying.”

“Sor mi’, te g’ ha di’--”

“I don't understand the dialect, Solipsista. I hear sounds coming out of you and not much else.”

The Strego squeezed their pupils shut, and wrapped their thin, thin fingers around the hunter's forearms, groaning a little and shaking their head.

They looked up again: “So tired.” they croaked, “I was going… to sleep. And I came here. My legs, they're-- I can't stand, I'm so tired. Master Stein, I'm so tired, but Shawn said, go to him, he called you, and so I'm here--”

“Okay, okay, I've got it. Damn, uh… would you like to sleep with the sheep? Their fleece is pretty soft -- speaking of which, do you perchance know where they might be from?”

“So they're really not yours?” Wally interrupted.

Henry shook his head: “They just… appeared on our lawn this morning, with a bunch of cheese and fabrics and kegs of Italian whiskey.” he turned to Solipsista, who had not for a moment doubted his claims on the softness of the wool, and had entered the shack to be greeted by a loud ovine chorus as they landed their face squarely on the back of an older sheep.

“Do you know anything about any of this?” the hunter inquired. They nodded slowly, pupils thinning in relaxed horizontal lines: “Saw them being delivered, I did… last night, while it was still real dark…”

“You saw the sender?”

The creature nodded against the warm fleece.

“Do you remember how they looked?”

“No, Master Stein… I couldn't see them well… they were a bit too far away from me… these are real good sheep anyways, sir, they're very soft and warm, when the time for wool harvesting comes you spin it into fabric and you'll make a good fortune, you will, the quality is brushed and well groomed...”

Solipsista mumbled a couple more praises to the animals before curling into a ball and falling asleep, snug as a bug on the curled white mantle of the respectable lady sheep who allowed them to use her as a pillow.

“Okay you three,” Henry remarked after a moment, turning to the triplets. “Help me bring the fabrics into the craft room and the barrels into the cellar, and I’ll give you one of the best for your troubles.”

“Sounds like a good deal to me,” Wally grinned. The other two nodded. They followed the medic in training to the hill his house was situated upon, and Mirror picked up three barrels, two in his arms and one on his head. Wally nudged him, and the changeling beamed and stuck out his tongue. “Show off.”

Wally managed one barrel while Willy took two, and Henry took one as well. If Mirror was going to take three at a time, that was fine by him. It took about an hour to get all the kegs into the house, along with the crates of other spirits such as wine and gin. Many of the products were unlabeled, and those that had a label were clearly very old and rare varieties, sometimes showcasing the symbols of ancient noble families, a testament to their prized heritage. Henry made a note of the locations, planning to map it out in order to understand these strange gifts. 

Wally eyed a couple of them with appreciative whistles, nursing some bottles more than others before handing them to their new owner.

“Choosing your picks already?” Henry apostrophed him, and the young fae shrugged a little sheepishly, still grinning: “What can I tell ya? They're the good stuff! If I don't get these beauts now, I'll never even come close to seein’ something remotely similar ever again.”

“That rare?” Henry asked, with surprise.

“That rare,” Willy echoed. “See this one right here? It's downright impossible to get, by legal or illegal means. You could potentially sell it to some snobby ol’ sommelier for a ton of cash, if the emotion doesn't kill them before they can even taste it, but I think that the history museum would prefer it.”

“History museum?” Henry asked, his brow raising in inquiry. “Why them? What's there in this bottle that could interest them?”

“It’s from the old Terragrade plants down south,” Willy explained, pointing at a small, almost imperceptible six-legged water bear logo. “The ones that were owned generation to generation, never letting a human hand touch them or their wines. One of the proudest families that even fought on both sides of the war. It would be a great addition to the collection in the museum of history. I hear they’ve been trying to open a Terragrade exhibit for a while to show that they weren’t monsters.”

Henry picked up the bottle.

“Maybe I will sell it to them,” he mused, smiling wryly. “Or donate them.”

“In honor of a certain someone?” Wally asked, batting his eyelashes and grinning like a hyena. Mirror cackled behind him, body phasing in and out of existence for a moment. The doctor in training glared at them and refused to answer to their prodding. “Ooh, I know it. You’re thinkin’ about him right now, aren’t ya?”

“How do you even know about-- about him?” Henry demanded, his voice almost a whine. “You just pointed me in his direction, you didn’t even see him with me!”

“Shawn,” Willy remarked, looking at one of the barrels. Henry’s expression went blank aside from two pink stripes on his cheeks. Willy pushed his lavender scented curls out of his eyes as he rose from the floor. “Anyways, I’ve noticed a lot of this stuff  _ does _ come from places near Terragrade owned or cursed land.”

“Cursed?” Henry tried to follow, trying to dump the previous fraction of discussion into the pits of hell. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Jeez, for someone who owned a Terragrade you did shite research,” Willy commented. “Read it yourself. Go to the library. I’m sure Mr. Piedmont would be glad ta help you with the book selection.”

“So you’re just leaving me on a blank?” Henry protested. Mirror smiled and nodded, absolutely content and happy with that idea. “You are all insufferable.”

“Ay,” Wally grinned, “But you love us.”

“Pick your damn drink and get the hell out of my house,” Henry replied, but there was mirth in his eyes and a smile on his lips. The triplets grinned back and did so, leaving Henry with questions. 


	2. Library

Henry entered into the library, looking for answers. However, instead he only saw Lacie, who was leaning quite lazily over the counter with what seemed to be some kind of not particularly safe-for-work magazine over hir face, possibly asleep. Then again, she and Bertrum owned this place, so to hell with being resources. He knocked on the wood to rouse hir, and she picked up the magazine to side eye him. 

“Sup,” she remarked, monotone, then returned to actually reading instead of sleeping with pictures plastered to hir face. Snorting, Henry remarked, “Isn’t that magazine a little not--”

“We have an entire sex education and erotica section,” Lacie remarked, waving in the general direction of it. “Interspecies, self actualization, etcetera. Want some?”

“Uh, um, no,” Henry stuttered, blushing. “I wanted to get some stuff on Terragrades.”

“There’s some smutty stuff on them, too, if you want--”

“Lacie,  _ please _ .”

“Yes please or please stop?”

“The second.”

“Alright, alright,” Lacie grinned. “So, Terragrade stuff. Bertrum’s in that general region.”

“I think I’d rather talk to him, then,” Henry informed hir. She only smirked and continued reading as he walked off in search of Bertrum. He found him with a long tailed blazer and chic slacks, hair done perfectly as always. “Hey there, Mr. Piedmont.”

“Henry my boy!” the greek man boomed, sliding down the ladder. “Delighted to see you again! How are your studies going along? Though the medical books are that way.”

“I know, and I’m doing well, and my studies are good, too,” Henry replied. “I actually wanted to read up on Terragrades and Lacie said to check with you here.”

“And why not ask hir to accompany you?”

“Er, um,” Henry blushed, “Uh.”

“Hir magazine is a farce,” Bertrum remarked, making Henry blink in an attempt to understand. “That’s just the cover, you should know. The inside is nothing but mechanics and robotics.”

“Fooled me,” he replied. “So, books on Terragrades?” 

“I’m afraid we don’t have much,” the older man grimaced. He climbed up and down his ladder for a minute or two, and returned to the doctor in training with exactly eight books balanced on his broad hand. Henry stared at the miserable pile of knowledge, sighing. “The Terragrade species was very secretive, and rarely allowed for any interaction to chart their habits, histories, and natures.”

“So… that's all?” Henry asked, both relieved and disappointed. Bertrum nodded. “What’re they on?”

“One is on their history,” Bertrum said, putting it to the side. “There’s two on their nature and connection to the world around them. Another on their demonic abilities. Two on their extinction. One on the best trapping and killing methods, though it is shorter.”

“And the last one?”

“‘How to cohabitate with your Terragrade mate,’ by her ladyship Alessandra Ramirez,” Bertrum read aloud. “Would you like that one as well?”

“Uh,” Henry flushed from head to toe. 

“Is that a yes?”

“No! No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Very much so.”

Bertrum rose an eyebrow with an amusedly inquisitive gaze, and simply shrugged: “Oh well! If you ever want it, you know where to find it.”

“Understood,” he mumbled, taking the other seven from the bemused librarian. “I’ll just check these out.”

“Remember the one month policy!” Bertrum reminded him with a smile. “I bid you a good day, Mr. Stein.”

“See you around, Mr. Piedmont,” he mumbled, leaving after stamping the books with Lacie. He read on the transport home, starting with one of the books on their extinction. He almost missed his stop with how absorbed he was in the volume. He hugged Eleanor and Linda when he returned to the house, carrying his cloth bag of books. “Good to see you two. How was your day?”

“It was good,” Eleanor replied with a slightly tired smile, “Linda has named every single sheep and written all of their names down so she can be sure I’ll remember them.”

“I got some books on Terragrades,” Henry told her. “I think that Johan might have left all this stuff.”

“It is possible,” Eleanor hummed. “I wouldn’t be surprised to hear he’s grateful towards you for having let him go.”

The doctor in training pursed his lips and lowered his eyes; his heart strained a little against his chest, uncomfortably, and he felt the lack of the Terragrade looming heavily on his shoulders. Linda, blissfully oblivious, grabbed his hand between her little fingers and dragged him away from the memory of Johan's painful departure, so that he could learn by heart the name of each individual ovine they had just come in possession of.

It occupied his mind for a while, and the next week when he returned from a late night test, he stumbled over a cow. 

There were four cows. They all looked at him with big baleful brown eyes. There were cakes, hay, and fruits and vegetables, all bundled up neatly and safely away from the cattle. 

Henry could only stare in shock. He was not only becoming a doctor, but also a farmer, apparently. 

Since the surprise had washed away his tiredness, he set himself for making a barn and stable, making sure to leave enough room for whatever else would be sent to them. The cows helped him with the structures, and then funneled inside without a single fuss, much like the sheep had. He shrugged and accepted gladly their unexpected intelligence. He yawned, suddenly sleepy, and took the remaining goods into the home. He then showered off the sweat and stress, closing his eyes to remember the hot springs he and Joey had spent that night in, a smile touching his lips as he recalled the playful side of the demon. 

He closed his eyes and let the water wash over him. 

Eleanor wrapped an arm over him as he settled into bed, snuggling into his wife’s arms. He would tell her about the cows in the morning. For now, he was content in her arms, breathing slower yet slower until he fell asleep.

Eleanor did not mind the cows. She found the assortment of gifts lovely, but she did make a comment to Henry that got him thinking. 

“When will it stop, though, I wonder,” she mused as she put away the pastries. “Will we run out of storage? If it continues next month, I suggest the week after you do a stake out and thank Johan- if it is him- but inform him we need no more. Not for a l0ng time, at least. There are a great deal of preserves in this batch.”

“I’ll try to,” Henry promised. “But he gives them on nights that I’m out studying. I might have to miss a class, but it wouldn’t be too much of a problem. Did you know that Terragrades are crepuscular?”

“What does that mean?”

“They’re mostly active during the twilight periods, like dawn and dusk,” he told her. “They take naps throughout the day and night.”

“Look at you, Mr. Terragrade expert,” she teased with a smile. “So now you’re a farmer, a doctor, and a scientist. Very very nice for a lady to have as a husband.”

“I’m not an expert, Norman is,” Henry replied. “Apparently he wrote a book on catching and hunting Terragrades. Seemed to be his specialty. I wonder why he quit, because he did before the rebellion ended. I wonder if something happened to him during it. Something that changed his mind.”

“Maybe something similar to you,” she suggested. Henry hummed and nodded: it seemed plausible. “That he saw that the trade was wrong entirely through the Terragrades.”

“It could be,” Henry responded. “I wouldn’t be surprised. He was very gentle with Johan. More than with other demons I’ve seen him handle.”

Henry sat down in his armchair, picking up the second volume of Terragrade history. He already finished the older one, and now was on to the more recent of the two. 

This one detailed the war. 

He tried not to think of Johan getting shot down or hanged as an example, dogs barking and chasing. It was made more difficult when he turned the page and saw a portrait of a proud looking Terragrade with bright eyes partially blocked by spectacles, a firm posture and drawn brow, a cunning but handsome smirk on his lips.

The Terragrade looked like Johan. 

Henry blinked, and took in the picture again, absorbing the features. An older, sharper, and paler version of Johan. 

He read the inscription beneath the drawing.  _ Atabulus Ramriez, the leader of the rebellion _ . He covered that with his hand, and then called over Eleanor to confirm his suspicion. 

“What is it?” she asked, wiping her hands on her apron. He showed the picture. Eleanor stepped back with wide eyes, startled. “Why, that looks like Johan! But wasn’t this one the head of their people? I seem to recall something of the sort when the fighting broke out….”

“Looks like I’ve got some more questions,” Henry muttered, eyes flicking over the portrait. “And I’ll get myself those answers, sooner or later.”


	3. sandman

The gifts continued relentlessly. One week, Henry awoke to a pair of alpacas placidly sitting on his lawn, carefully nibbling on only the top of the grass, ruminating as if nothing had been out of place. They smiled at him making a show of their straight teeth as he approached them and immediately set out to make another shack for them. For the third time, the animals helped him with construction. At this point, he would have lied if he had said he was astonished by their behaviour. 

“You really must tell him to stop,” Eleanor reminded Henry about Johan while Linda scrupulously examined each new creature and deigned it a name fit for it. “We’re going to run out of land going at this rate.”

“Maybe,” Henry admitted, then smiled. “But you love that I’ve been upped in my brawn since I’ve been building all of those little barns.”

“Well, it’s a good thing he’s sent fabrics too, because otherwise you’d rip your shirts,” she joked along. “Where does he get all of this from, anyways?”

“He’s a traveler,” Henry replied. Cornflake waddled over to him, smiling dopily. He patted the sheep’s head gently. “But I will try to meet him before he goes next week. I’m just wondering what on earth he’s going to send next -- surely he's running out of species.”

It was peacocks and peahens. Four of each. Pecking around his head, awakening him from where he slept.

Both Henry and Eleanor were silent as they stared at the beautiful birds, them staring back with onyx gazes. Linda was delighted, as she always seemed to be when faced with new animals, and named them all promptly. 

“How did you miss him?” Eleanor asked in a whisper. Henry had spent the night outside, but he blushed to tell her that he had fallen asleep rather quickly when he got home from the clinic. He dreamt of Johan brushing a hand through his hair and smiling at him slightly, and it was such a pleasant dream he could hardly rouse from it to see if anything was happening outside of it. “Goodness, these fowl are very pretty… I never thought they were so long, though. They look a bit like turkeys.”

“A bit, yes,” Henry laughed. “Blue turkeys. I’ll be sure to catch him next time, I promise.”

The next week, he returned home late as always after the monday night shift, and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. Settling himself on the porch couch, he lit a lantern and set himself to reading the medical journal he hoped would keep him up. It was not long, however, when he found himself nodding off. 

He was waiting for someone, though, he had to stay up. Who was he waiting for, again? Henry struggled to remember his name, seeing red eyes and blue hair in his mind’s eye.

“Johan,” he mumbled in his dreams, the name clicking in place. “Johan….”

“I’m here.” the voice of gentle dreams came to him, gorgeously curling around his ears.

“Stay with me, a night,” Henry asked, begged the apparition, clearly not the real man, for there was no sound from his mouth nor any true vision to behold. Still, Henry opened his arms for the hazy dreamed up version of his passion, humming as a pressure formed on his chest and something soft and wispy, like silky hair, was combed through his fingers. He mumbled something against fabric that felt like skin as it moved to embrace him softly. Sleep within sleep felt so good, especially with a warm body cuddled to himself; even if it were just a dream he did not want to wake up from. 

The traitorous light of sun stirred him awake nonetheless the next morning, a small flock of the fluffiest damn birds he had ever had the pleasure of seeing cooing and ruffling their feathers next to him, as a wonderfully warm blanket laid on his still half asleep form. His hands caressed the fabric absentmindedly; he swore he could still feel the skin of his dream on his lips, and its texture and consistency were nothing like the slightly cinnamon scented cloth draped on himself.

He looked at what he assumed must have been chickens. Most were white, and covered from head to toe in long downy plumage. They looked more like dinosaurs than chickens. Eleanor came out to see him laying on the couch, one chicken on his stomach, another on his head. She covered her mouth to keep from laughing. 

“They’ve chosen you as a roost it seems,” she commented, “Good thing you built the peacock and hen house to hold more birds in case he sent any others. Did you manage to talk to him this time?”

“No, I fell asleep again,” he admitted apologetically. “Come over here and pet them. These chickens--at least I think they’re chickens-- are the softest things I’ve ever touched. Linda’s gonna go ballistic over them. Maybe she’ll keep one in her room along with Matilda the lamb.”

“There’s a chick,” Eleanor pointed out. Henry almost cried when he turned to look at it. It was so small, and looked simply like a ball of fluff, the tiny blue beak hardly sticking out from its facial region. It peeped at him with such incredible confidence compared to its size that the doctor in training was nearly blown away (from adorableness). He gently caught it in his hand as it stumbled forward, unbalanced by the sheer volume of its fluff.

“In a way, they remind me of Johan,” Henry remarked, putting the ones on his body onto the wood of the porch. “Very soft and like a dinosaur.”

“Quite true,” his wife agreed, smiling, although her grin seemed a little tired. “Do try to catch him next time, though, I’m still trying to figure out feeding schedules for Linda to follow, and new livestock every week is making that a literal hell for me.” 

“I will,” he promised. “I’ll stay home from the clinic and take a nap during the day. I’ll catch him this time, I swear.”

The week passed quickly, yet uneventful, despite Henry's work at the clinic and the increased number of critters Eleanor and Linda watched over, especially since the little girl was proving to be quite skilled at managing them for someone so young, inviting her friend Marina and her sister Gonner to join her in farmhanding. The fateful day, as promised, Henry remained home; as he waited for the night to pour that dark mantle over the sky he decided to occupy himself with his various beasties (smaller and bigger), alternating tending to them with short rests, and drinking a coffee before each powernap to surge back into energy. By the time evening rolled about with the warm hues of the setting sun, he had managed to keep his mind as sharp as it had been in the morning.

First twilight passed, turning into true night. The last flecks of dusk passed into darkness. It was peaceful, only the chirps of cicadas surrounding him and other nightlife. So, his ears naturally perked when he heard the quiet sound of what had to be goats. 

He shook himself to be fully alert, and then called out; “Hey, Johan!”

“Shh, don’t scare the myotonic goats!” Joey warned him in a whisper, hardly surprised to see him. “They’re prone to fainting. Shy little sweeties, they are.”

“Like you?” Henry teased, getting up to properly greet him. Johan only snorted, neither accepting or denying the words of the ex-hunter. Henry sighed, smiling softly. “Hey, uh. Johan.”

“Yes?”

“We-- Eleanor, Linda, and I-- we all really appreciate the animals and the food and drink and,” Henry scratched his beard, standing before him awkwardly. “Well, everything you’ve given to us. But we’re running out of room, you see. We won’t need anything more for a while.”

“That’s good,” Johan told him, smiling slightly. “That you have enough, yes?”

“We do have enough,” Henry agreed. “More than enough, maybe. But still, thank you. A lot.”

“It’s no problem,” Johan told him, turning to go back into the darkness. “I’ll see you around--”

“Wait!” Henry called, choking on the word. “Don’t go yet… come in, have some tea, rest a bit. We’ve got your bed still if you’d like to sleep before you journey.”

“I… yes,” Joey hesitantly accepted the invitation, slowly following Henry into his home. They sat in the kitchen as they waited for the tea to boil, and Joey’s hand absentmindedly reached Henry’s. The doctor in training let his heart skip and dash across his chest and led the demon into his home to sit at his table.

Boiling water filled a pair of cups; Henry stirred small packets of tea to let their taste filth the water with its dark color. He dumped some sugar inside the mugs and offered one to the Terragrade. Johan accepted with quiet thanks.

“It’s been quite a while.” Henry murmured. Johan hummed in agreement. “How are you?”

“I'm just fine.”

“I'm glad to hear that.”

“And you? How are you?”

“Eh, I'm doing well myself,” Henry shrugged with half a smile, “Just juggling between family, studying, some jobs at the clinic… and trying to figure out where to keep all the gifts you keep bringing us so nicely.”

“... you’re not hunting anymore?” Johan asked, tilting his head. Henry shook his head, golden curls bouncing. “Er, forgive me for asking, but, why?”

“Let’s just say I’ve had a change of heart.” Henry replied. They talked for some time longer, about seasons and plants and moon phases. With a yawn, Henry led Joey back to his old room, allowing him into bed first and then following, nuzzling his nose to the side and back of Joey’s neck. “Mmm. missed you.”

The Terragrade combed through Henry's strawberry blonde curls slowly, deliberately, with utmost tenderness in each movement; countless slender fingers followed the shape of the strands of hair with a gentleness the doctor in training was not sure to have experienced before, as they felt the weight and texture upon every individual fingertip. It may have been one of the most soothing experiences he had ever gone through, and it caused him to fall asleep rather quickly, holding the demon in his arms.

It made the morning, in which Johan was already gone, bittersweet. Henry’s breakfast and coffee had been made, as they always were when Joey was still in his household. The sight of them made something in his chest bloom and shrivel all at the same time.

Eleanor joined him after a few minutes: “I see somebody has made breakfast for us.” she mused. He hummed in response. “I take it you managed to see him last night?”

“I did,” Henry nodded, “And he brought us some shy goats -- they should be outside. I did tell him not to bring more animals even though we appreciate them, don't worry.”

“Shy goats?” she asked with a laugh. “What, do they faint?”

“Yes, in fact they do,” Henry replied. She seemed surprised and fell silent. Henry’s grin faded after a minute, and he sighed, looking off to the side. “I’m going to miss him.”

“Well, I don’t think he’d up and abandon us just like that,” Eleanor pointed out. “I’d say he might send a letter or two. With no return address, perhaps, but I don’t think he’s the type to cut all ties.”

Eleanor was correct, to Henry’s relief. There was a letter weekly, and within, a small note from the Terragrade wishing them well, and an exchange slip to any bank for a specific amount of money, each time different, each time more than enough to last three weeks without moving a muscle. Henry and Eleanor found themselves growing rich from everything Johan had given them, which included vegetable seeds and fruit trees. 

Henry always hoped that the demon would send a letter regarding his arrival.

Eventually, one such letter appeared. 


	4. Hound

Henry could hardly contain his excitement for the man’s impending arrival. Even Linda spotted it and got excited right along with him, Matilda the sheep and Peter the silkie confused but accepting her happiness without as much as a second thought. Eleanor easily noticed as well, and merely smiled at her husband's near childish giddiness, serenely mixing her sugar into her tea with nary a touch of anxiety, knowing that Joey was a sweetheart that could not hurt a fly.

They were all waiting.

It was a good feeling to look forward to something.

Henry once more took a day off from the clinic, and Linda announced that she would nap all day to stay up all night (though she proceeded to have a sugar rush at about eleven and passed out at twelve) so she could see Johan. Henry promised her before she completely fell asleep that he would make sure Johan would stay long enough to say good morning to her, and that let her fall asleep happily. 

The whistling was wonderful to hear. 

“It’s good to see you again, Johan,” Henry greeted. “It’s been a month or so.”

“Mm,” Johan shrugged. “I’ve been around. Slower than I’d like to be, but I’m managing.”

“Why are you slower?” Henry questioned, getting up to meet him partway, noting that he had a more pronounced limp now. “Are people looking for you?”

“No, my ankle just hurts,” Joey assured him. “It hasn’t gotten better since I’ve twisted it.”

“Mind if I take a look at it?” Henry offered, sweeping him off his feet and carrying him back to the house. The lantern was clicked on, and Henry set him on the couch, smiling with squished cheeks as he caught sight of the pouty blush over the demon’s cheeks. “What’s the matter, princess?”

“I need not be carried,” Johan harrumphed. “And I’m no princess, either.”

“Whatever makes Your Highness sleep at night.” Henry joked with a light chuckle. The Terragrade just huffed, and the doctor in training turned to look at his swollen ankle. He exercised a small pressure upon the wounded area with his fingers, earning a hiss of pain from Johan which made him furrow his eyebrows in thought. He examined the ankle a little further, somewhat surprised at how well the man had managed thus far. 

“Well?” the Terragrade asked, a little uneasy for how long it was taking.

Henry looked at him in the eyes.

“Johan, your ankle is broken.” He informed him. “Not too broken, but broken enough and with a lot of pressure exerted on it. Too much, in fact.”

“What?”

“Your ankle. It's broken, not twisted. Looks like it's been like this for quite a while too.”

“That… can't be. It just isn't possible.”

“I know what a broken ankle looks like, Johan.”

“Are you sure?” There was worry in his eyes. It made Henry’s heart hurt a little but he could use this opportunity to show Joey that he was trustworthy. 

“I'm a doctor.”

“In training.”

“Still a doctor!”

“In training!”

“You're not moving from this house,” Henry sentenced while fetching some bandages and something that could support the foot as well as keep it still, “I'm not letting you worsen the situation for yourself.”

Johan's eyes widened: “But, but!-” he began arguing as he tried to stand up, wincing and swallowing down the pain as he had been for a few months, “But I, I can't stay here for your safety, I should-”

“Linda really wanted to see you again,” the doctor murmured with a smile. The Terragrade grew quiet. “I was hoping I could have convinced you to stay over a little in the morning, just so she could say hi. No one would know you’re here.

A pale finger brushed a strand of deep blue hair away from Johan's face. His red eyes fell to his lap, long fingers torturing themselves in his indecisiveness.

“I guess… if it's truly broken, then I guess staying would be a good idea.” he whispered. Henry nodded happily. “When did it break?”

“When you fell into the water,” Henry muttered, the incident finally clicking in his head. “Remember?”

“Yes,” Joey agreed. “I do remember.”

“That was fun, wasn’t it?” Henry asked him, wondering if he was as fond of the memory as the former hunter was.

“It was rather e-enjoyable,” he replied. It made them both smile. Johan looked away after a moment, blushing. “Well, it’s q-quite late for you and I--”

“Come to bed then,” Henry said, and Johan’s mouth snapped shut. Henry carried him into-- his own room. Eleanor’s sleeping form was on one side of the large bed, and Johan found himself placed on the other end, Henry pulling him into the bed after him. Joey’s heart thumped like a stampede, even growing dizzy from the scent of the demoness and Henry, almost overpowering. “Your room is under renovation.”

Joey did not know that was a farce to get him to stay with Henry, but it did not affect him-- he was trying to quell his heart and enjoy the closeness without getting greedy. 

His ankle already was starting to feel better with the pressure surrounding it and the warmth of a blanket, the support of a bed under his back. He listened quietly to the gentle even breathing beside him, the dark of night curling around him with its comforting, comfortable silent purr, and fell asleep.

The tables turned in the morning. Johan woke up to the smell of food being prepared, which he silently absorbed as he continued to lay down, strangely comfortable. Soon after he arose, he was served in bed by an eager Linda who told him that she stole his room for Matilda and Peter. He accepted this statement along with his food and her overexcited energy. Afterall, now that it was stolen, it was not exactly like he could steal it back, and besides-- he no longer was imprisoned here. That was the only reason he could even let himself return, though he  _ wanted  _ to return for completely different reasons. He did not need a home, yet this one had become an epitome of comfort. 

The first week was a little awkward, trying to figure out scheduling and keeping Johan from walking to prevent him from being stuck in the cast for longer than six weeks. Linda helped with that, often sitting on his lap and thus anchoring him to his seat, requesting he read her a book, play a game with her or with her new pets, tell her a story, or simply hold her. Henry and Eleanor had both thought that the sight was supremely adorable, and now Eleanor was not alone in whispered teases about blushes. 

The week after they fell into some sort of system, a comfortable balance of humanity and happiness. Henry had accidentally pecked a kiss onto Joey’s cheek when he had given him his daily meal before he had slipped to work, and paused outside of the door to blink in surprise and then laugh, shrugging it off and moving on to get to the clinic. Linda showed him all of the animals (who greeted him with amiable cries and nibbles at his hands, like an old friend) and told him all of their names, making Johan smile with amusement. Eleanor and Johan cooked and cleaned together, reading books and chatting to make the hours pass a little faster. Sometimes their hands touched by accident, and they both laughed with slightly darkened cheeks, as if they had told each other some sweet joke.

Henry loved it. 

He and Joey went on walks-- in a way. He would pick Johan up and carry him around outside, sometimes bringing along with them the family, and rarely even a picnic basket to enjoy a nice meal outside on a good day. Even though the Terragrade made a big show of huffing and puffing and pouting each time the doctor picked him up, grumbling with a small smile about how he did not need to be held and carried in such a way; Henry let him complain all he wanted, their closeness being all he could dream for.

Eventually, though, Henry had to allow Joey to walk on his own, at least once he was sure that the exertion would cause no more damage on the man’s ankle. 

They took a long, quiet walk in the forest. They held each other's hand in silence, pressing gently on the palms. Though the quiet was good, Henry felt a little nervous, a bit flustered, and made himself look up to the man. 

“How is your ankle?”

“It's fine.”

“Does it hurt in any way?”

“No, no, it's perfectly fine,” Johan assured him. “It doesn't hurt in the slightest -- you're a great doctor.”

Henry smiled, chest puffing with pride.

“I try my best.”

“Do you, now?” Joey asked, and Henry thought, for a moment. He then turned to look at him, smiling before him. 

“I absolutely do.”

“That’s good to hear….” Joey whispered, pupils changing in size rapidly, back and forth. Henry thought it was absolutely fascinating to watch, and he leaned in to see it a little better. What a beautiful shade of red. He had never seen one so vibrant and pure. A hand raised to touch under that eye, gaze treated by quick blinks. Breathing was steady and calming, and when eyes closed, Henry’s did as well, skin brushing skin as lips touched lips. 

Henry’s heart caught in his throat. 

He rose onto his toes to kiss him better, the hand on Joey’s cheek going around to the back of his head, brushing through silky strands to pull him closer. 

Henry’s heart pounded. He could feel Johan’s pulse through his hands, thrumming and maddeningly quick. 

Johan moved back a fraction of a centimeter to breathe, and Henry sucked in a breath as well, his entire being alight with energy and a happiness that he did not know could exist for more than one person, but was glad that it did. 

“Johan, I,” he murmured softly. “I lo--”

Something jumped out of the foliage suddenly, loud in the way quiet things can be. The two turned with a startle, shoulders raising in fright as they faced whatever was coming towards them, arms slightly outstretched to shield each other.

A deer looked back at them with big liquid, abyss-like eyes, just as terrified as them.

The three of them held their gazes for a a few brief seconds, though it felt longer and a bit awkward; then the animal resumed its fleeing and disappeared back into the forest in the direction it had been going prior without so much as a noise except for the rustling of leaves and branches it trampled along its way. Henry gave a quiet, breathless laugh of surprise, smiling at Johan, cupping his jaw.

“Now, that was a rude interruption of this examination, don’t you think?” he inquired with bright eyes, cheeks rising with his smile. Johan gulped, flushing bright red. “Shall we get on with it?”

“I, um, if you’d like to,” the Terragrade replied, his face warm and hands heating. He had never experienced something like this, and it was strangely enthralling, his heart stubbornly refusing to slow no matter how deep and calculated his breaths were. “I… am I doing okay?”

“Johan, you’re doing more than okay,” Henry assured him, coming close once more. Their heads leaned together. “You’re doing absolutely perfect.”

The doctor's soft hands went first to card through his blue hair, pushing a strand behind his pointed ear, to then stop on his jaw as they cupped his cheeks once more. Henry basked in the demon's shy beauty, keeping it from receding back into the safe darkness of deep ink blue hair, positively hypnotized by his ruby irises.

“You're doing so, so perfectly,” he murmured. His thumb brushed gently at Johan's chin, passing over the demon's lips like a lovestruck spectre. “So, so beautiful….”

He rose on his toes once more, bringing Joey down to meet him partway, a set of the demon’s arms wrapping over his shoulders and his tails carefully curling around their legs, as though out of his control and completely overwhelmed by the sheer sensation of Henry’s... everything. Indeed, the man’s smell, as powerful and comfortably common as it had become as of late with being in his house and (more flustering) his bed, was quite nearly dizzying when so close, and Joey’s heart raced with the knowledge that he was  _ kissing _ him.

They held onto the other's mouth until they both ran out of breath in their lungs, refilling them and returning to each other as soon as they could to drink of the lovely nectar that was fueling their loudly beating hearts.

The ground was dazing, especially with the sudden loss of the delicious and warm sweetness that Henry had just been enjoying immensely. 

In its stead were rows of sharp hungering teeth drooling something like liquid fire upon the ground as they bit down on his arm (it singed as such), and eyes small and vicious and so scorchingly burning like the very depths of hell. Johan had screamed, and the hound turned its beady gaze to him, snarling. Johan scrambled up a tree as fast as he could, as soon as Henry silently signalled that he could handle the beast himself. 

He lifted his legs and kicked with all his strength, forcing it to fling off of him and into another tree. 

He took off at a distance safe enough to get a running start, shouting obscenities at the hound, daring it to chase after him; “Come and get me you howling fuck!”

Henry watched the hound, and it watched back, unmoving. Cautiously, he began to approach it once more, earning a bone chilling growl from the dog to himself when he moved towards the tree that Johan was hiding in. Henry swallowed and knelt, taking his medkit from his belt and taking care of the bite on his arm, injecting a rabies shot just in case, keeping his eyes fixed on the hellish canine.

“Henry?” Johan’s voice was small and afraid. “I think it wants me.”

“Can you do your voodoo brainwashing trick?” Henry asked him, still watching their pursuer. 

“No,” the Terragrade replied, trying to climb ever so slightly higher, “The houndae yeth are immune to that.”

Between Henry’s teeth hissed a soft ‘g-ddamnit’: of all the demons to go and look for Johan, it just had to be the type immune to the Terragrades’ terrifying but priceless ability.

“This one is trained,” Joey pointed out. “See the way it holds its tail? It is restraining itself f-from chasing you.”

“Good to know,” Henry grumbled, “But that’s not going to help us, is it?”

“Trick it? Give it a poisoned treat?” Johan offered, his voice trembling more and more. The scorching drool was starting to burn the stalks of grass beneath the hound's massive paws, turning them into a strange black ash, similar to that of volcanic origin. “Please, Henry, do  _ something _ , it’s terrifying me… oh, heavens, please no….”

“Don’t worry,” Henry murmured. “Johan, stay put, I’ll be right around the corner. I need you to extend your brainwash magic to the nearest animal, like a rabbit or squirrel. Make it come out to me.”

Soon enough, a fairly large rabbit hopped over to him. Henry pricked it with a needle, and it died within a minute, Henry skinning enough so that the meat would shine. More needles were used, filling the flesh with poisons. 

The dog watched him curiously, head tilted and tail poised. It seemed rather intrigued, although its senses were still focused first and foremost on the frightened Terragrade. Its nose quivered in Henry's direction, but it did not move.

“Johan,” Henry called, carefully throwing the dog the meat, “You trust me, right?”

“This is not the time for a t-trust exercise!”

“That's why this isn't one.” 

“Yes, I trust you, but that’s not important right now!” he remarked shrilly, the hellhound stepping closer to him, licking its maw from rabbit.

“I need you to jump down.”

“Are you crazy!? My wings are broken!”

“Please, I’ll catch you! Trust me!”

Johan turned to the hellish beast beneath him again, squinted eyes taking in the sharpness of the fangs, the coal and sulfur ready to erupt in licks of blazing flame, the faint glimmer deep inside impossibly dark pupils. 

He inhaled, and forced himself from the branch, leaping towards Henry with all his strength. 


	5. Rock and Hard Place

Henry’s arms reached to catch him, the trajectory good, Joey falling not too slow and not too fast. So the cage made of fire that snapped up beneath the demon shocked them both, suspending Joey in an upside down trap. 

The hellhound barked triumphantly, delighted by its own surprising accomplishment, grinning ferally in the manner of canines at both Henry and then Joey, who banged the bars, on the verge of tears.

“Help me!” Johan screamed. “Henry, do something!”

Henry jumped and grabbed the cage without a second thought, only to fall from it from the shocking and searing hot pain. 

“I can’t!” he shouted back, badly hurt but still glad that the flames had not burned through the skin. “I- I’ll follow! I won’t leave you, I promise!”

Johan, crying a bit, reached out to Henry to take his hand through the fire. Henry touched his face, softening.

“I promise I won’t leave you.” 

The hellhound began trotting along, slow enough that Henry could keep pace, opening a portal down into the depths of hell to shorten the route to wherever they were going, forcibly or voluntarily. 

Hell looked… surprisingly calmer than one might imagine. At the very least, the half frozen rocky tundra extending as far as Henry's eyes could see seemed to be incredibly tranquil. There was not a soul to greet them, to scream, to clutch their ankles with cold livid hands as to beg them to free them. The hellhound’s paws sunk barely in the rigid snow, which seemed to be completely undisturbed by the warmth of the flames which composed Johan's cage. Henry seemed to understand they were on an uppermost level. 

And after, quite literally, two steps, another portcullis appeared, and they stepped through it to be greeted by the two oni that guarded Derekson’s museum like manor. 

Johan's heart sank.

Henry felt that if he was not properly restrained, this might have been the time he finally snapped and cracked that son of a bitch open like a tough jar of jam.

The hellhound's tail shook weakly at the sight of its home. It was clear it was much more excited to be back than it showed - as was clear that the poisoned treat it had eaten was starting to affect it for the worse.

The doctor felt a tinge of pity for the poor creature. His hand went to carefully rub at the hound's large neck; it wagged its tail a little more as thanks, and began huffing its way to its master's room, dragging the prisoner and ex-hunter along as best as it could. The two oni that let them in seemed surprised that it had succeeded in its task, sneering with malice at the Terragrade who merely rose his head and straightened his back. 

The manor was even more exquisite within than outside, adorned with gold and silver platings, beautifully built. Frescos covered the walls, depicting all sorts of magnificently detailed exotic landscapes which the owner of those halls most likely had seen, bringing back from those lands not only beautiful imagery, but also living souvenirs for his entertainment. Everything inside of the building felt grand and majestic to the point of turning in some kind of baroque parody of what it was meant to be, a living museum.

Derekson's room was wide, spacious, crammed with art and beauty and yet mortifyingly empty, aside from the occupants within it. The man himself sat on a chair that could have been a lesser king's throne, wide and cushioned enough to be considered a bed, an androgynous being standing beside him and a few demons around.

“Oh, good, my guests are here…” Johnny grinned. “It’s so wonderful to see you both again.”

“Eat shit,” Henry growled. The dog barked after his words, almost seeming to agree with him. It gave a pained whine soon after, when its master glared at it with what was at best annoyance and at worst, a cold and absolute indifference. “Let us go right now you sick--”

“My my, temper temper!” Johnny laughed, covering up his words. “Heel, Thyme.”

The hellhound came over to him, flopping by his feet. 

“What did you do to my dog?”

“Poisoned it.”

“Oh? Is this a way to get me to trade back your bitch for mine?” he asked, standing with a scowl. He turned to the demon beside him. “Show Mr. Stein how much we appreciate that.”

They nodded, and stepped over in two quick paces, slapping him across the face after kicking him in the stomach, sending him sprawling to the floor. Johan cried out for him, pleading for the other demon to stop. 

“It’s doctor,” he hissed on the cold pavement. The demon stood, as if awaiting orders. “Dr. Stein.”

“Ah. well then,” Johnny smiled. “Show Dr. Stein how much we appreciate that.”

“No, please!” Johan begged, the cage holding him breaking apart as the hellhound grew even weaker. Johan, falling to the ground, picked himself up and ran best he could to Henry, shielding him with his thin body. “Please, stop this. Don't hurt him again.”

Derekson huffed, looking down at the hellhound, thoroughly disappointed in his pet for not being able to handle something as trivial as being poisoned much like a child is when their toy breaks apart after bashing its head against a wall several times. A thought wandered into his mind, and he kicked it in the stomach, forcing it to skid down the stairs leading to his large seat towards the Terragrade and human. The poor canine yipped weakly, its tail between its legs as it cowered and whined in pain; one pair of Johan's arms secured the large animal in their kind grip, petting its sides to gently coax it to lay down.

“What a lovely picture you three make,” the collector mocked them, “A weakling rare bitch, a doctor who can't handle being roughhoused, and a dying dog. Truly poetic. I think I shall have it painted above my toilet.”

Johan darkened when he realized which part of the analogy he was, shoulders shirking inwards. Johnny laughed.

“Go to hell,” spat Henry once more, getting back to his feet a little, “And fucking stay there.”

“Oh you'd like that, wouldn't you, you disgraceful sore loser of a hunter. Can’t see a good deal and take it.”

“Sore loser! Look who's talking,” the doctor laughed without any joy, “The man who couldn't handle not getting his cake and eating it too for once in his entire life, calling me a sore loser. If this isn't just like at the circus. My sides are splitting as we speak.”

“Henry,” Johan said quietly with a pleading tone in his voice. “Let’s just go, please.”

“Henry, eh?” Johnny caught, tilting his head. “Not sir, or master? No ‘my lord’? A demon and its owner on a first name basis? How odd.” He paused to ring a strangely shaped bell. “Ogiv, bring it to me.”

A large bovine head turned to Johan, and the biggest minotaur he had ever seen marched towards him, making the ground shake fiercely at every step - although truly he seemed to be crawling on his knees, for despite its extremely elevated ceiling the room was still a little too small for him. The Terragrade found himself almost completely enveloped in his palm, arms pressed to his sides, and offered to Johnny like an exquisitely seasoned salami.

Henry cried out in dismay as Johan was pulled away from him, both of them reaching for the other, completely futile.


	6. ultimatum

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> blood mentioned in this chapter as well as derekson being derekson

Johnny spoke in a language that Henry did not understand, yet the minotaur easily did, changing his hold on Johan to force his hands forward, holding the six limbs out by pinching them by their elbows between his index and middle fingers. The collector examined each pair of wrists meticulously, Johan flinching and trembling as he ran his greedy fingertips across the Terragrade's skin.

“No… bond… rope…” he commented after finishing his look over. He smiled, surprised. “You’ve been freed, have you?”

The demon refuses to meet his gaze. His neck was bent so that he could only face the floor.

“You have been!” the voice reached him with a sing-song tone as the grip around his wrists got stronger, “Oh, yes you have, yes you have!”

“Don’t touch him,” Henry seethed. “He’s no one’s property.”

“Lucky for you, I don’t have any bond rope laying around,” Johnny remarked, though he sounded annoyed by that little fact. Henry could easily see the relief flooding Joey, even though the Brokenheart still held his wrists tightly.

“However,” Johnny continued nonchalantly, a grin slowly uncovering all of his teeth as his face grew closer and closer to that of the mortified yet incensed Terragrade, “I don't see a reason for that to matter right now.”

“Get your  _ filthy _ hands off me,” he snapped, yanking one of his hands free and slapping him across the face with it. “Accursed fiend.”

Derekson stayed in the pose that Johan had hit him into for a moment, palm cradling his cheek and eyes widened in genuine surprise. Joey glared at him, hand still flat and ready for another blow. Johnny slowly rose up, a grin blooming on his face. Johan’s expression turned colder, almost disgusted. 

“My, my,” the Brokenheart purred, “How kinky we are!”

Johan gave a grimace of pure fury and struck him again, strong enough to make his head turn for five days straight.

Or he would have, had the minotaur not pulled him upwards suddenly by his throat, making sparking clusters of stars dance in his vision as he choked. Henry shouted at the colossal beast, afraid for Johan's life.

“Let me give it a try, hm?” Johnny remarked teasingly, arm winding back.

“No!” Henry yelled as Joey’s head snapped to the side. The five fingered blow stung and burned on the demon's cheek, making him wheeze and gasp for air. “Fuck you, Johnny! Let him go!”

“Or what? What will you do? Fantasize about what I’ll do to him? Dream that you’re the one holding him down on the bed? You really wanted him before, can’t share your toys?” the collector mocked him. His hand grabbed the Terragrade's hair and tugged it towards himself. The minotaur obliged to his request by lowering Johan closer to his master, toes brushing the floor. Johnny sunk his other hand's nails into the demon's jaw, toying with him briefly before pressing his nose into his hair, down along to his neck, and inhaling his scent so forcefully that he almost seemed about to rip him to shreds with a bite. “Ohh, that’s good, that's good. So good. You smell like fear-- and  _ him _ . Have you two been sharing a bed lately? That’s cute. Getting it groomed and ready for me, Henry? Oh, how thoughtful of you. You really shouldn't have.”

His smile faded suddenly for a moment, and his voice lost its jolly tone.

“You really shouldn’t have.” he repeated, ice cold steel in his gaze as he glared at Henry. His hand, still in Joey’s hair, pulled his head back sharply, inspecting for something. “Ogiv?”

“Yes master,” the minotaur rumbled so very softly with a voice like the bottom of a trench buried deep in the sea, and there was the sound of a tear. Henry, upon realizing that Johan’s shirt was no longer in one piece, looked away out of respect for the demon. 

Johnny, however, had no such kindness, instead turning him around after noting nothing but scars on his front, and then tapped a mark on his right mid-shoulder. 

“You’ve got a mark, but it’s not his,” Johnny commented. “That’s good. This one is pretty old, too, no renewals. You and your old lover get into a spat? Mm. Doesn’t even seem like a lover’s mark, no, seems paid, it’s not in a heartlink location. I wonder… this is a demon’s mark, not anything else, yes? What type is it, though…?”

Joey’s jaw was locked, arms holding up the halves of his shirt best he could. Johnny motioned for another demon to bring him a book, which he leisurely flipped through, in no hurry whatsoever, seemingly not noticing the struggle and discomfort in the specimen he was inspecting. In the meantime, Henry leaned to tend to the dog he had poisoned. Their attempt had failed, and he would rather not have the poor creature die on him. The large creature leaned into his palms, entrusting itself completely to him; its demeanor had gotten much more demure, almost reaching the borders of hopelessness, and it cried as softly as it could, trying to make as little noise as possible. Henry rubbed its large belly comfortingly while administering the antidote, sparing murderous glances at the slow, slow collector taking his damn sweet time. He knew Johnny tried to make it throw up by kicking it in the stomach, but the fact he would kick a dog at all reminded him that Johnny was an awful person. 

“Oh? What’s this now? Why, it appears that it must be a succubus mark.”

Johan tried to recollect his limbs into a ball to shield himself from the collector's voice, the giggles of the other demons, and Henry’s stupefied gaze.

Johnny’s laugh cut over the sneers of his demons: “And you look  _ so _ afraid of what I’ll do with you. Sweetcheeks, it’ll be no different from what  _ you  _ paid for-- except  _ better _ .”

“It wasn’t me,” Johan croaked in defense, weakening from the assaults on his pride, his being and body. “It wasn’t.”

“Sure thing, sure thing,” Derekson vapidly whined with a dismissing wave of the hand, “Spare me the heart wrenching story, will you, babydoll? You’re still not as… innocent as you’ve been portraying.”

Johan shook his head in denial. 

Johnny’s hand gripped the side of his face, half closed eyes inspecting him. 

Johan’s gaze rose to meet his, and the entire room went completely silent when he spat in his face. Johnny wasted no time in kicking him down in the chest, the stairs behind him making him fall quite painfully near Henry, who gathered him in his arms and pulled him close, murmuring assurances. Johnny wiped his face with a misted towelette, then turned to them, sitting on his throne big enough for a giant. 

“I thought long and hard about what I wanted to do with you two once I got my hands on him,” he said with a hum, leaning back casually. “Kill Henry on camera and replay it to the little bitch until it snaps? Have Henry record as the Terragrade strips down for me in front of this whole audience, dancing like a cocotte, and then sell it around? Put you both in prison cells and let you starve and thirst for days on end until you’d do anything for a drop of water or a bit of sunlight? The possibilities are endless….”

Henry's shoulders hunched over his frame as one of his arms went to wrap around Johan to shield him.

The Brokenheart smiled even more widely and snapped, as if struck by a bolt of genius: “Oh wait, I know!” he gingerly exclaimed, head bobbing slightly left and right, “If  _ you _ , my lovely little slut that you are, refuse to cooperate, I'll just kill the doctor right in front of you! Or, if you absolutely don’t want to be a sweet obedient thing, well, we can arrange for Henry to sate me enough-- fellatio once a month, perhaps?”

“What in the goddamn name of the everliving fuck,” Henry said, completely shocked and partly disgusted, turning red from an internal rage. “Why the  _ hell _ is  _ that  _ an option?!”

“Because that way you’ll know your place,” Johnny told him in a rough growl, losing the juxtaposed silliness that had been plaguing his tone. “Because that way you'll know whose horn was blown by whose mouth. Maybe that will teach you not to talk back to me.”

“You won't do  _ anything _ of the damned sort,” Johan growled with such a horrid and potent roar hissing between his bared sharp gritted teeth that the entire room shook, hands clawing-- Henry could see the nails extend from within his fingers, eyes dangerously flashing. The hellhound laying still on his lap made its throat rumble in unison with the Terragrade, but still kept quiet in fear of accidentally incurring the demon's wrath. “I’ll stay here if you let Henry and the dog go-- as well as any demons who would like to leave your household.”

“Now we’re talking!” Derekson clapped, and retrieved an intercom. “Any demons who would like to leave my service and home, report immediately.”

Three or five demons, after a moment of stalling, did just that, and were released from their ropes. 

Ogiv's massive bovine eyes fixed for a moment on his master. Without a word, the gargantuan minotaur turned to face a giant glass door that gave way into a garden: he opened it gently, squeezed through it carefully as to not accidentally break anything by accident, and left. Other much smaller creatures followed him suit, almost hastily, as if afraid their freedom would have been denied had they not evacuated the mansion immediately.

Johnny turned to Henry, the doctor still hovering over the slowly healing hellhound and the terrifying, determined Terragrade. With a motion, he signaled one of his many remaining demons to shove Johan over to him, forcing him up the stairs and crashing down in front of the madman. Henry winced and reached for him, but was grasped by another demon.

“What should I do with him, master?”

“Get him out of my sight,” he sighed flippantly, “And take that disgusting mutt out with him.”

Henry found himself booted from the massive place with the dog at his heels, escorted by the oni that did not leave. He turned back, about to call for Johan, about to run back inside to get him back, but the oni refused him entrance. 

The doctor, as angry and frustrated (and minorly sore) as he was, still remained lucid enough to know he needed to find someone who could help him in that situation as soon as possible. Someone that understood Johnny enough to help him sneak in and rescue Johan. Someone like--

“The Doe offers sanctuary,” one of the freed demons said as they skittishly walked past Henry, fearfully looking over their shoulder as if Derekson would appear at any moment. “But I don’t know where he lives….”

“The Doe?” Henry asked, raising his eyes to see them. “As in, Johnny Doe?”

“Yes, him,” the demon replied cautiously, staring at him. “Why?”

“I know where he lives.”

“You… you do?”

“Yes,” Henry nodded, approaching them a bit too enthusiastically to notice how they shrunk away from him slightly in fear, “Yes, yes, I do! I do! He's close, he's -- why didn't you say that sooner? Come, quickly, quickly! We need to get there immediately!”

“Before you go, Henry, I’d like to make a point to our benefactor friend,” Derekson called from a balcony. Henry turned to glare, and gasped as a bullet went into his side, hand slapping over the wound. Hot blood seeped from within. “If he doesn’t play along, I’ll make sure the next one goes into your brain. Capisce?” 

Henry could see the terror in Johan’s eyes even from that distance. 

“Goodbye, Henry,” Johnny laughed, booming and malicious. “Enjoy your trip home.”

The demons looked at Henry in silence, he pale and breathing hard.

“Let’s go as fast as possible.”


	7. Woozy

Johnny Doe's house was half covered in trees. Or maybe it was built directly from the trees. Henry would have kept looking at it longer, to let the thoughts he had on its shape and materials fully resurface in his mind, but his vision was weirdly hazy and, according to his educated guess, roughly a whole bloody lot of blood was spilling out of his side like the world’s saddest and reddest theme park waterfall, so his brain was busied with other thoughts which he considered slightly more important that the architecture of Doe's house.

The dog at his side kept him upright, as did the demons who glanced at him from time to time with worry. 

“C’mon,” he slurred. Even though Johnny and Johnny were practically neighbors, the Brokenhearts closest to each other in vicinity of anyone else, it was still a good half a mile walk, possibly, even probably, more. Henry swiftly stepped up and knocked on the door, and as darkness danced in his vision, fell forward when it opened. “J’nny, need help-- J’nny’s got’im….”

A pair of hands pressed as hard as they could on his shoulders to keep him upright and spare his face an unfriendly encounter with the floor. Henry's head swayed up and down as he tried to formulate words. The Brokenheart’s blurry and worried grimace came into his unfocused eyes’ range.

“Henry? Are you okay-- holy shi-- you’re bleeding?!”

“Huh. I guess so-- oh, uh yeah,” Henry confirmed, looking at the still growing stain. “J’nny shot me--”

“He shot you?!” Johnny Doe yelped, pulling him into the house. “Jameson! Jameson! We need medical supplies, for once the human ones, if you will! Henry’s been shot!”

For a moment, as he was dragged further into the house with a flock of concerned and frightened demons behind him, he thought he could see someone who looked very similar to Shawn coming towards him with a medical kit, all dressed fancy and black and white and a little grey, as if he were a groom late to his own ceremony. The sparkling eyes and uncharacteristic silence cued him in, however, to the fact that this was most definitely not him.

Jameson gestured to his love to lay the doctor in training down on their old and soft couch, keeping his injured side up and off of the surface. The dybbuk set to work on the wound immediately, aided by Johnny, first and foremost making sure it was not infected. The Brokenheart talked to Henry loud and clear as they tended to him so that he would not lose conscience: “If it hurts, don't be afraid of telling us, okay? Scream of you need to.”

“Right on,” Henry mumbled hazily, and was indeed not shy of displaying his ability to yell when he cried out as Jameson began carefully digging into him in search of the embedded bullet. Johnny lent him his own hand to squeeze, while the other demons cowered at the scream; the hellhound whined and barked with its hellish voice, partly frightened, partly as if to reassure the doctor that he was not alone. “Fuck! ARGH!”

Henry, out of his mind in pain, shrieked and writhed, and eventually the intrusive pain vanished.

The hemorrhage was successfully stopped as his side was tightly bandaged. Jameson left briefly to return with a warm blanket, which he draped over the doctor to somewhat make up for the heat of the lost blood.

“J’nny,” Henry slurred, sweat on his brow and pain in his expression. “He’s got’im, took ‘im….”

“Relax now, relax,” Johnny hushed him, “Rest a little, it's been quite rough for you today--”

“J'nny got 'im!” Henry insisted, trying to prop himself up with an elbow and only barely failing, “Johan -- Johan's, he's, he's took ‘im, ‘s got ‘im, he's gonna, that bas'rd -- he's got 'im ‘n’ he'll, he'll--”

“Johan? Johan as in Joey, as in, the Terragrade?”

“Yes, yes, yes, he's -- tried t’ kidnap ‘im first, ‘n’ then, ‘n’ then he said, he -- Johan, he's… he's…”

‘Johnny grab your gun,’ Jameson signed plainly. Doe stared at him. ‘Oh. Right. It’s my gun.’

Said gun snapped into his hand, shiny and polished. The dybbuk grinned. 

Henry reached out to get it, making every demon in the room shrink in pure fear. Johnny held him back with barely any trouble and laid him back down to rest.

“Bad doctor,” he shushed him, “Rest first. Shoot that bastard of a creature later.”

“I'm g'nna bite ‘is ass off,” Henry growled, or at least tried, as his roar was slurred and sluggish, woozy from the pain and blood loss. “I'm g'nna make ‘im see a whole new f'rmam'nt, I'm g'nna… rip ‘is damn… head off, I'll...”

“After you rest.”

“Nah, I gotta save ‘im,” Henry wheezed. “Gotta save -- you don’ understand, he… he's there, to… he stayed to let me… that son of a, he said he'd shoot me right there if Joey said no so he….”

He broke into a sob, unable to continue. 

“It’s Derekso-son, Johnny, don’t you see?”

“Jameson will go out to him for you,” Johnny soothed him, though he was just as worried. “He’ll make sure that he doesn’t touch him. Okay?”

“N-nooo,” Henry wept. “No, please, I gotta go help him.”

“You need to rest. Let your wounds heal--”

‘I can possess him.’

“Jameson, no.”

‘Jameson yes!’

“Jameson yes!” Henry echoed, Johnny shooting him a glare of silence. “Wait, who’s he possessin’?”

‘You!’ Jameson informed him very helpfully before diving head first into his soul. The initial shock wore off quickly. Henry’s teal eyes blinked, shifting to some color slightly colder, the blood on his side turning silvery and cool to the touch. He began healing slowly, the dybbuk’s soul easing his own. 

“What the fuck,” he blurted out -- not so much in horror, nor in awe, but in some weird feeling sitting more or less between the two, surprise, and a kind of resignation to the infite power that what is unexpected holds. “Are we going to be able to-- yes, yes we can.”

The gun settled nicely in Henry’s-- and Jameson’s-- hand. 

“The bullets are non lethal, a pity against that monster,” Johnny warned him. “Stay safe, you two.”

Henry and Jameson smiled at him, feral and unhinged. 

“We will.”


	8. Funhouse

“I’m gonna fucking kill you!”

This was not how it was supposed to go. As they had planned and half fantasized during their desperate run back to the collector's enormous home, he was supposed to leap in the nearly empty mansion like a fearless knight in shining silvery armor and rescue Johan from Derekson’s filthy grasp without him ever even suspecting that Henry's shadow was upon the horizon.

Instead, Derekson was now charging towards him as best as he could, face twisted in some unholy mixture of rage and pain, blood coating the inner half of his thighs and trickling down to the floor with a somewhat steady flow, his shirt mutilated and face scratched as if an agitated cat was let loose upon him, bloody claw marks all over him. Additionally, the cat’s aggravation seemed to have transferred to the brute, eyes crazed with rage. And he had his gun back in his hands, along with a knife.

That was indeed a frightening turn of events to say the least -- for Henry, who was not a ghost and therefore ran the uncomfortably real risk of death, and for Jameson, who was struggling to remain in Henry’s body to keep him from bleeding out from the cuts he had sustained, especially a nasty gash on his knee that did not hurt as much as it bled.

The Brokenheart staggered towards them, silver and ash scattering before him. 

His knife was coated in it. 

Jameson struggled to hold onto Henry, and lost his touch entirely as the knife flew into their hand, sending the dybbuk sprawling out and falling on the floor, flickering and fading. 

Henry gasped and groaned, the gun in his hand already lost, scrambling for the now bloody knife that was jamming him into the floor. He needed it out of his hand, but his other appendage would not listen to his own desperate orders, and the lower half of his body was trying its hardest to fight against Derekson, who was doing everything in his power to completely overpower him. He still did not know where Joey was, and that terrified him most of all. 

Derekson growled at him as he almost frothed at the mouth, his horns appearing to lunge forward to stab into the skull of the doctor in training: seething in rage that could have brought up the very devil. 

Did Johnny always have three horns? There was an arrow jutting from his shoulder now. 

“You piece of shit!” the Brokenheart screamed while his armed hand was erratically thrown all over the place in a struggle to point the muzzle simultaneously towards Henry and away from Henry, “We had a fucking deal! That bitch fucking attacked me!”

With a kick, the doctor managed to shoot the collector's wrist up in the air, wrenching his hand free, but there was no need: there was a shadowy blur behind the Brokenheart towards which the dastardly man was halfway through turning to, before a sudden twang resonated across the hall and Derekson fell to the floor. 

Quick light footsteps rushed to Henry, the clattering of wood dropping somewhere along the way, and his face and hands were cupped in many, many loving hands. 

“Henry,” Johan gasped, panting. There was a long cut on his face, dripping blood into his eye, but he seemed otherwise unharmed nonetheless. He rose his own palms to cup the Terragrade's face, inhaling sharp and deep between the adrenaline of what had just happened: “Johan-”

The demon hushed him, attending to his wounds with the remains of his ruined shirt, wearing a silk cloak coated in some gore. The Terragrade had blood on his hands as well, though he assured him that it was not his own.

“What -” Henry tried to ask, “What, what on Earth happened to you?”

“You mean what happened to him,” Johan replied very softly, “And trust me, you don't want to hear that.”

“But -- but what-”

“You don't want to hear that.”

“But what--”

Johan leaned in to whisper in his ear; “Let’s just say he’s no longer a procreationist.”

Henry picked up what he meant and stopped asking, wincing at the very idea. He looked over at the now dead man, lifeless and harmless on the floor.

“That’s a straight shot right through his skull,” he commented with vaguely concerned admiration. “Guess we’re both marksmen. But you’re better -- you were trying, at least.”

“Thank you,” Johan said with a questioning lilt towards the end of his words. “I’m glad that he’s… gone. Even though he normally terrified me, after he shot you, I became f-filled with some deep calm, but I knew I was afraid an’ angry. Somehow, I was calm at the same time.”

“I doubt he would have given you any weapons,” Henry remarked, glancing at the bow and arrow. “I can see that’s from his museum, but how did you…?” Henry, finding it awkward to ask; motioned instead.

“I used my hands.”

Henry recoiled in both the idea of the sudden and jarring pain that must have been, and the disgust that surely faced his poor Johan.

“I’m… so, so sorry that we ended up in this situation,” Henry sighed. 

“You couldn’t’ve anticipated it,” Johan assured him, helping him off the floor. “There was s-some sort of fountain or large basin nearby, let’s go wash up and get rid of this metallic gore.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” Henry agreed, and looked over to Jameson, who was a little tired blob on the floor. Feeling bad for the soul, Henry put his watch next to him and allowed him to enter within, snorting a bit as he watched the tiny man make himself comfortable between the gears. 

The Terragrade gently helped him to one of Johnny's fountains. He dipped the injured hand in the clear waters, tainting them red with the Brokenheart’s blood. Henry felt a warm cloth going over his brow, his arms and hands. The sensation was rather comforting, rather calming. His thundering heartbeat slowed down, and so did his breath, returning even after it had nearly gotten erratic. 

“Thank you,” he whispered to Johan, leaning on his shoulder. “For… hell, for everything.”

“It's n-nothing.”

“No, no, it's not nothing. You have done… so, so many things for us, for me, and I…” Henry sucked in a deep breath, “You gave yourself to save me--”

“I never would have let him touch m-me--”

“But what if he did? What if he overpowered you, or if you made a lapse in judgement? What if he did get what he wanted and you had no way to stop him!”

“Henry, I never. Ever. Would have let him t-touch me.” Joey stated firmly. He hushed the doctor before he could try to argue his worry again, one of his many hands caressing the blonde’s beard, cleaning out the red atop it. “I would have torn him apart all over again.”

Henry held the hand cupping his cheek. He did not mean to insinuate he was weak -- he was well aware of the demon's outstanding strength, likely impossible to be matched by a Brokenheart, yet he could not help but fear terribly for what could have happened to him. 

“I thought you were letting him do what he pleased… because of me…” Henry admitted. “I couldn’t… I couldn’t let that happen to you.”

Johan smiled sweetly. He kissed his eyebrow, murmuring against his skin: “I couldn't let that happen either.”

Henry’s hand came to the upper back of Joey’s head, having gone through his hair, the strands soft and tickling to his palms as he brought Joey to his lips.

It was quiet. A quiet kiss. Just lips pressing on each other. It was calming. Even though there was blood on Johan’s tongue and Henry’s lips were chapped, it was perfect.

They sustained each other as they rose to their feet, careful not to forget reclasping the watch where the dybbuk was resting onto Henry's wrist. They passed Johnny's unmoved body on the floor on their way out, and with a display of incredible self control Henry refrained from kicking it or spitting on its head.

Johan just pulled them out of the house. 

“I freed the other demons,” Johan told him, and lit a match once they were out of the massive mansion. “So, do you think we should burn this fucker down?”

The doctor in training hummed as thoughtfully as he could for a moment with such a question posed to him, hand brushing through his strawberry blonde beard: “I wouldn't want to cause a forest fire,” he commented with a smile, “But I guess it can't be helped, hm? We can only try to control the damage-- it’s a good thing to renew the low foliage in any case.”

Johan smiled sweetly at him, like a beautiful siren; the burning match was flicked away, landing gracefully on a particularly flammable part of the enormous mansion and letting its wild bright mane grow and chow down with surprisingly aggressive enthusiasm on the architecture.

“Nothing will be lost,” Johan remarked. The roof groaned and fell inwards, sagging down like a very wet towel. “Well, nothing of import.”

Henry gave a snort: “No, not really. Shall we go back to Johnny Doe's?”

“Just a moment,” Joey said, watching the flames lick higher. Henry thought he was very much like fire, ancient, tired and powerful. His firelike eyes turned to Henry’s oceanic ones, and they came close once more, joining once more, kissing him once more in front of burning hues, singing on Henry’s lips. They came apart after a long single moment, and together turned around to walk away, at a leisurely pace, leaning on one another as they limped.

“You two look like shit,” Johnny commented in shock. “Where’s Jameson?” 

Henry, unable to talk from his lung’s exertion, simply tossed him the watch. The dybbuk swam comfortably between the gears, yawning a little, and Johnny's expression sweetened at the sight. He placed a small peck on the watch, earning a small heart drawn on the inside of the glass.

“Alright then, you insane daredevils, what on Earth happened at Derekson's house?”

The doctor gestured at him to let both of them lay down to recollect their energy for a second there -- a request to which the Brokenheart immediately obliged once he noticed the sorry state his hand and the previously closed bullet wound were in, the jagged cuts on Joey’s body, especially the one on his forehead.

“I’m first getting the medkit,” he said, paling across light and dark skin. “Then, once you're good and healthy again, you better fucking explain yourself. Shit, is that right through your hand?”

“We killed him,” Henry bit out as Johnny stitched him up. “And then burned down his waste of wood of a house.”

The Brokenheart spared him an unsure glance.

“What? Don't believe me? Go outside, I bet you can still see the pire -- Johan, Johan, tell him. Tell him. Tell him how you got him.”

“We burned it down. I shot him in the head with a bow and arrow that h-he kept on the wall.”

“The head…?” 

“Yes.”

“Then he’s not dead,” Johnny Doe told them, eyes wide with fear. “You need to break his heart. Stab it, make him feel heartbroken, tear it out if you have to.”

They went cold with horror.


	9. Dash

The knowledge that Derekson had feigned death was harrowing; knowing Derekson, even if burnt to a crisp and with his skull impaled by an arrow, was possibly roaming ever closer to them like an extremely vengeful poltergeist hiding in a jack-in-a-box was a special kind of horror, dangerous to entertain in someone’s mind for too long. It was one nobody wanted to even be able to consider being able to experience.

“He probably thinks we’re headed towards home and is expecting to cross us on our way there,” Johan reminded Henry of that possibility, which terrified them both all the more. If Derekson was indeed going towards their home, and if he was quick enough as he did so, then he might have gotten there before them, and that meant that Linda and Eleanor would have been in enormous danger. “We need, I dunno, his carriage? But it might be irrecoverable… oh, why did I have to b-be so stupidly angry?”

“Hey, hey -- if you didn’t burn it, he might have used it for himself,” Henry pulled him out of it, taking his hand, ignoring the bandages on his own. “It's not much, but if anything, we are even in terms of movement speed. We still have a chance at outrunning him.”

“He’s a goddamn horse,” Joey snapped, shoulders hunched. “We need a shortcut, and one better than m-my own.”

Henry bit the inside of his cheek, thoughts racing through neurons together with the sting and pressure of teeth pressing into his flesh. He turned to Doe, and asked him: “Is there some kind of path around here that could give us an advantage, even if minuscule?”

“Jameson might know, as he seems to be able to get from point a to point b very fast,” Johnny replied. “And not in any human manner that I know of. All the Flynns-- they’re all quick.”

The doctor in training took the watch from his hand and tapped on its surface, disturbing the dybbuk rather rudely from his rest (though told himself that he would have apologized later, once that son of a bitch was properly kicked six feet under and no longer able to threaten his family): “Rise and shine, Jameson, we need your help, and we need it fast! We must get to my house before an off-the-shits bastard gets his angry hands too close to my wife and daughter!”

Jameson exited the portable clock's quadrant, shaking himself into form and a little disgruntled, hands moving quickly and jerkily in what appeared to be a short grumbling rant which definitely included flipping the doctor off. Henry grabbed him by the shoulders, trying still to moderate the strength of his grip so as to not hurt him, and repeated with urgency: “We need your help! And a shortcut!”

‘Door to Shawn,’ he told them and pointed unimpressively at said door, which they could not see until he had spoken and illuminated it to them.

Henry patted his arm in a brief display of gratitude and jumped straight into the door one second after Johan. On the other side, Shawn jumped in slight shock as the two stumbled and nearly crashed their way into his not too full tavern like a pair of crazed gun-munited burglar ferrets.

“Well, hello to you, too!” he greeted a bit too loudly for a casual, normal encounter, which was an appropriate volume as this was very much neither a casual or normal situation. “What’s the hurry, doc?”

“Derekson's out to get us--” Henry explained quickly, as the Terragrade instead preferred to keep moving.

“Oh, that makes sense.” Shawn interrupted, “yeah, totally-- why?”

“--after we emasculated him, shot him in the head with an arrow and burnt his house down to a crisp.”

The tavern owner remained silent for a moment there.

“Can’t say he didn’t deserve it, as I’m guessing that he saw the Terragrade--”

“Joey.”

“So he saw Joey and wanted him in that freakish way of his,” Shawn shrugged, pursing his lips in thought and beckoning them to follow him. “So, yeah, uh, I’ve got a hoverboard if ya need?”

“That'd be of great help actually,” Johan replied quickly.

“Do you know how to drive one?” Shawn asked, clicking the keys. Henry shook his head, but Johan nodded. “Aye, so I can trust you not to crash my baby. Right?”

The hoverboard flew over to them, and Joey spread his broken, torn, and melted wings. Henry found himself encased in six arms as he sprang up onto the board, kicking off the engine and launching them towards home. 

“I’m more worried he’d get his hands on Linda,” Johan muttered in Henry’s ear as they powered away, “Eleanor is perfectly capable of defending herself, but Linda is… she's just a child… and Derekson--”

Henry noted that he became all the more tense. 

“Would he really…” his heart froze and pounded all at once. “He wouldn’t.”

“He is a beast  _ interested  _ in genetics,” Johan hissed. “I wouldn't put it past him to do something so disgusting. I know he would. He essentially told me.”

Henry tightened his grip around Johan: “If you can make this thing go even just a sliver faster--”

Johan’s wings beat behind them, moving them along, the holes in those wings whistling. The engine roared as hard as it could while the wind attempted to rip their skin off and saw through their bones with what sounded like a heartbroken banshee's cry.

They fell as they landed by their front door and the hoverboard flew back to where it came from, feet scrambling to keep themselves upright as they tried to enter the house, Henry forcing the door.

“Welcome!” Johnny, still with arrows in his flesh and black blood dripping, turned his head around all the way to look at the door, even as a pan smacked him. “I am quite surprised you made it so quick!”

“Son of a bitch!” the two men roared in damn near unison. Eleanor slammed the pan on him again a couple of times with the strength befitting of a demoness, hissing a particularly vicious insult which was only known through obscure oral sources, as the transcription of such an obscenity had been strictly forbidden ages prior. Henry launched himself to tackle the hellish beast, ignoring the wounds of his flesh. “Let her go, you bastard!”

Henry’s turning self into bowling ball method of attack was a success, slamming Johnny down and away from her, and she landed a blow on his head once more, both causing a force of acceleration and impact as husband and wife worked accidentally in flawless unity. Johan preferred not to imitate the doctor's modus operandi, instead grabbing the limbs and various joints of the vaguely stunned Brokenheart with his own many sets of hands, immobilizing him as best as he could.

“You good?” he asked Eleanor. She nodded a little, eyes fixed on the threat at hand. “Linda?”

“Still asleep,” the succubus assured, “This bastard didn't even get close to her.”

“Oh, but I'd love to,” Johnny gargled with a large smile, a horn half broken from the impact dangling from his head as he swayed it left and right in some sort of haze, “Oh, to get my hands on her, that'd be something -- to think of her heritage, oh, that's something, that's something…!”

Henry planted a knee in his throat: “Don't you dare even just think of my daughter,” he growled with a tone that promised a slow and indescribably painful end.

Johnny struggled against the Terragrade's strong clutch with a maniacal smile, hissing between them: “Trust me, you cheap excuse of a doctor, I’ve thought long and well about your lovely little Li--”

His sneer was cut short by his own voice as it tore his jaws apart, erupting in an anguished wail which Eleanor was quick to silence by shoving an old rag down his throat deep enough for him to breathe while still not being able to spit it out. Johan's fingers slithered between flesh, bone, nerves and blood, squirming in the manner of sharp toothed worms that devour all they encounter in their path as they dig through the ground.

Henry took in the sublime gore of Johan literally prying apart the man’s rib cage, digging hands into the chest cavity and tearing out the heart with a savage expression. 

It pounded in his hand, and Johnny stared at him, beseeching mercy in his entirety. 

“Don’t.”

Teeth sharper than they appeared.

“Touch.”

Eyes red like blood, pupils hardly visible even in the dim light, adrenaline pouring into muscle and nerve. 

“My.”

Wings raise, and a hellbeast from another world is reborn.

“DAUGHTER!”

Hands splinter into claws, a scream cut off by a throat torn from its body, unguis driving deep into the throbbing heart, breaking it with a sound like a glass shattering at high velocity, mauling, biting, a flurry of speed and precision reducing what was once a feared and powerful foe to nothing more than strips of flesh. 

Eleanor and Henry slowly turned to look at each other, then at the heaving Johan.

Johan looked back at them with a slightly mortified glint in his eyes, already shifting back into the demure and quiet person he was instead of the ferocious apex hunter. 

“Woah.” husband and wife said in unison. Eleanor then gave Henry a soft kiss, the man scooping her closer and holding her for a while, grateful. When they broke apart, she whispered something in his ear, and Henry grinned as he turned to see the terragrade looking at the two with a blushing gaze. Henry then grabbed Joey by the collar and pulled him into a deep kiss, the stress of the day dispersing in the intimacy. 

“My turn,” Eleanor said with a smirk, and leaned to kiss Johan, who held her back gently. 

“Perhaps tomorrow,” he said with a small smile. “I don’t think I can handle any more contact.”

“That’s alright honey,” Henry assured him, letting him go, then biting his lip. “Uh, cuddling after clean up okay?”

“Y-yeah. Yeah.” Joey nodded. “That sounds… nice. Today has been… far too long.”

Clean up was quick, and efficient. Joey gathered the remains in a sack that would not be missed, and vanished into the night, saying something about flytraps. Eleanor and Henry easily washed the left over mess, being that the Brokenheart did not bleed until Joey crushed his heart. They talked a bit about their days, and shared a few kisses out of the reassurance that the other was there.

Linda slept in her bed with the unshakeable dreams of children, from which not even a cannonball could awake, and smiled oblivious to the danger that had nearly grasped her in its horrid claws. Her three parents (as Johan had returned, cleaned and no longer plagued by the iron smell of blood and gore) peered into her room with intense relief, glad to see that Matilda and Peter were there in her arms, causing her to smile even in sleep. 

The three of them felt their knees grow weak. They sat right outside their daughter's door, their backs to the wall, the last rush of adrenaline subsiding and leaving them absolutely exhausted. They exhaled softly, in unison.

Eleanor clicked her tongue, and after what felt like an hour turned to the two men: “So… we fall asleep here, or we have enough strength to get to bed?”

Johan sank further, his eyes already closing. 

“Poor lad,” Henry whispered, wrapping his arms around him, his hand joining Eleanor’s. “You’ve had a hell of a day, didn’t you?”

“You did too,” Johan slurred as he slumped a little towards the doctor in training. Another pair of hands hoisted him up, and suddenly they were a six legged creature of sleepiness as they shuffled to their bedroom. They crashed on their bed in a cuddling pile, snuggling tight with one another in a mess of intertwined limbs and drowsy murmurs.


End file.
